The latest news from around the globe

Commonwealth Games 2014 Opening ceremony at Celtic park. Team Scotland.

Investigators probing the flight MH17 disaster are today expected to begin examining a second black box.

An international team working in Hampshire conducted an analysis of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from the downed aircraft yesterday.

The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) said examination of the flight data recorder (FDR) will begin today.

Athletes take the Games spotlight

Athletes will take to sports fields, courts, track and pool as the first day of Commonwealth Games competitions gets under way.

The Queen formally declared the 20th Games open at the end of a colourful ceremony at Celtic Park in Glasgow yesterday evening.

She and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh will today watch some of the swimming at Tollcross International Swimming Centre and hockey at the Glasgow National Hockey Centre.

More trusts with financial concerns

The number of NHS trusts referred to the Health Secretary over financial concerns increased almost three-fold in a year, a report revealed today.

Nineteen were flagged up to Jeremy Hunt this financial year - compared with five in 2012-13 - as well as 24 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), according to the Audit Commission.

Marcine Waterman, Controller of Audit, said auditors were reporting concerns about the financial resilience of a third of trusts this year, compared with a quarter for the previous 12-month period.

US ban on flights to Israel lifted

The US Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on flights in and out of Israel, which the agency had imposed out of concern for the risk of planes being hit by Hamas rockets.

"Before making this decision, the FAA worked with its US government counterparts to assess the security situation in Israel and carefully reviewed both significant new information and measures the government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation," the FAA said.

"The agency will continue to closely monitor the very fluid situation around Ben Gurion Airport and will take additional actions as necessary."

Degree costs set to rise to £26,000

Students heading off to university next year can expect to pay more than £26,000 for a three-year degree, as the cost of higher education rises.

New figures show that the average fee for those beginning courses next autumn will be around £8,700, up 1.2% on 2014/15.

More than three in four universities and colleges in England will charge the maximum £9,000 for at least one of their degree courses, while one in four will charge the top price as standard.

A&E patients 'will wait longer'

The Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation said that there is a "perfect storm" of factors which are leading to an increasing in waiting times in emergency departments across England.

The comments come after the latest figures from NHS England show that major A&E departments failed to meet the four-hour admission to treatment or transfer target for 52 weeks running.

Report critical of undercover units

Undercover police units will come under fire for gathering and keeping information about black justice groups that "served no purpose in preventing crime".

In the latest report about the conduct of Scotland Yard moles, due to be published today, Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon will say that the force's highly secretive Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), Special Branch and senior management flouted rules about what details should be kept.

He was called in to lead an inquiry into the SDS after a series of allegations were made about the unit, including that officers used the identities of dead children without permission and tricked women into serious sexual relationships.

'Wake-up call' over interest rates

Wake-up calls must be urgently sounded to help people plan how to cope with increased borrowing costs amid the prospect of the end of rock-bottom interest rates, a think-tank has argued.

The Resolution Foundation warned that even a "relatively benign" move away from the current rate could double the number of households facing repayment problems in the coming four years.

Its projections suggest the number of "highly geared" mortgage holders who are spending more than one third of their income on repayments could balloon from 1.1 million currently to 2.3 million by 2018, equating to around one in four households with a mortgage.

Sex crime squad 'under-resourced'

Scotland Yard's sex crime squad was left with dozens of jobs unfilled despite a surge in claims of child abuse, a report has found.

The number of alleged child rapes and sexual assaults has risen by a third in London in the past five years, with a 10% jump in claims last year, but at the end of 2013 several posts in the force's Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command remained empty.

On paper, the number of officers dedicated to investigating sex crimes rose by just over a fifth in the same five years, but this did not reflect the number of jobs left unfilled, the London Assembly found.

Doubt cast on role of paracetamol

Paracetamol painkillers are no better than a placebo for speeding the recovery of people suffering lower back pain, a study has found.

Doctors should now look at whether the over-the-counter drug should be the first choice treatment for people with the hugely debilitating condition, scientists behind the research said.

The Australian study of more than 1,500 patients, published today in the Lancet, found that patients given the common analgesic recovered no more quickly than those given a useless substitute.